Different types of manufacturing processes are critical to scaling production for the manufacturing sector in any country. Raw materials like ore, wood, and food are transformed into finished commodities like furniture, metal products, and processed foods. In manufacturing, raw material is used to produce the finished good, sold at higher prices later owing to added skills and labor. Let's explore more about the manufacturing process and its types in this blog post.
What Is a Manufacturing Process?
Manufacturing converts raw materials or components into finished goods by using the required equipment, tools, manual resources, machinery, and chemical processing. As a result of manufacturing, businesses can recoup their initial investment in raw materials. Large-scale manufacturing makes producing goods in significant quantities possible using assembly line methods and cutting-edge technology.
In other words, manufacturing creates items using labor, equipment, instruments, and biological or chemical synthesis. Manufacturing process or manufacturing engineering can refer to the large-scale transformation of raw materials into finished goods. Product design and material selection come first, and the components are altered during production.
The various steps involved in the manufacturing process include design, raw material procurement, fabrication, assembly, quality control, packaging, and shipping. Some manufacturers use the term fabrication to describe how various components for a finished object are often created through multiple intermediary procedures.
Types of Manufacturing Processes
One manufacturing technique can be more effective for your business than another, depending on the nature of your products or business. Following are six different types of manufacturing processes currently employed by companies around the world:
Job Shop Manufacturing
Job shop manufacturing often uses production zones rather than an assembly line for small-batch, personalized products. They readily allow for the customization of the finished product. Many machine shops also use this kind of manufacturing to produce regional industrial equipment.
These workstations may concentrate on a single product or selection of products, similar to a custom shoemaker or a commercial printing press. Due to technological advancements, job shop manufacturing software can facilitate workflow and output management.
Repeatable Production
While making recurring production at a committed production rate, repetitive manufacturing is appropriate. In this manufacturing process, specialized production lines operate year-round on the same product or component. Because there is a minimal setup and changeover, you can adjust operation speeds to meet client demands for producing more or fewer goods. The repetitious manufacturing method is often used by businesses that produce electronics, cars, or durable consumer goods like refrigerators and laundry dryers. Repetitive manufacturing can be more cost-effective than job shops, as it can maximize production rates with more automation and fewer workers.
Discrete Manufacturing
This type of manufacturing is far more diversified than repetitive manufacturing, allowing for more frequent changeover and variety. Discrete manufacturing still employs an assembly or production line. With discrete manufacturing, a corporation can offer a variety of product styles, sizes, or customizations, however, this frequently results in a lengthier production time due to the additional setup or removal that may be required.
The discrete manufacturing technique is used by numerous businesses that make apparel, medical gadgets, toys, smartphones, and auto and aviation manufacturers.
Manufacturing Using a Batch Technique
Based on consumer demand or the accessibility of ingredients and raw resources, batch-process manufacturing is comparable to discrete and job-shop manufacturing processes. If the batch from a single manufacturing run is sufficient to meet client needs, you stop production, clean the machinery, and pick it up again when you require another collection. Batch process manufacturing is frequently used to manufacture food, newspapers, books, and medications.
Ongoing Process Manufacturing
Like repeated production, continuous process manufacturing is ongoing. The distinction is that this method concentrates on raw materials, which are frequently gases, powders, liquids, or slurries. Continuous process manufacturing produces paper, metal, oil, and food products like tomato sauce, juice, or peanut butter.
3D designing
3D printing is now widely accepted as the sixth manufacturing technique by many in the sector. Invented in the 1980s, 3D printing replaces manual labor or mechanization with various composites and materials, including plastics and metals, to build three-dimensional objects layer by layer from a digital model.
With dozens of equipment manufacturers and hundreds of thousands of 3D-printed products currently on the market, this industry has experienced tremendous growth. While 3D printing can be pricey, it allows businesses to build and test goods before investing in them on a bigger scale. Moreover, it can save financial capital, raw resources, and waste. The following products are already produced using this expanding production process: Health care dentistry and medical equipment, artificial limbs, musical apparatuses, Buildings, etc.
Other Types of Manufacturing Processes
Other types of advanced manufacturing processes are:
Machining
Power-driven tools are used in machining to form solid materials and metals by taking out extra fabric from the product, typically through trimming. The industry is built on machining, which includes items like presses, equipment for creating chips, and modern machinery.
Joining
Joint designs take into account assembly performance, maintenance requirements, and operations. While welding is more cost-effective and minimizes excessive weight because it doesn't require overlapping materials, fasteners, or mounted elements in between, bolting is a common fastening technique.
Forming
This process uses a metal press, die, or punching tool, metal forming bends, spins, or stretches metal. Although you can reuse equipment by switching out the dies, developing is expensive.
Casting
When heated and poured into a mold or cavity, a solid dissolves into a liquid in casting. Any form of meltable metal can be cast into complicated or straightforward shapes with various design options.
Organize Your Manufacturing Processes With TranZact
Humans have produced completed items from raw materials for as long as we can remember. Today, manufacturing is known as the process of turning natural resources into final products, and companies can still manually transform these materials into completed goods. Nevertheless, today they also have the choice to buy equipment and automated processing solutions that will allow them to mass-create items on a far grander scale.
Supporting these modern solutions is TranZact which is a digitization software that automates the management of key processes across sales, inventory, production, and transactions to accelerate manufacturing for SME businesses and foster growth. It helps you to automate diverse operations that are repetitive, save time and focus on other value-adding business activities.
FAQs on Types of Manufacturing Processes
1. What is the difference between manufacturing and production?
Manufacturing is a subset of production. It is the process of converting raw materials into finished commodities through various steps. Production, on the other hand, refers to all the operations that are involved in the creation of goods or services. It can include a broader range of activities such as marketing, sales, and distribution.
2. How does automation impact the manufacturing process?
Automation in the manufacturing ecosystem refers to the use of modern equipment or machinery to automate processes across all stages. Automation increases the company's productivity while decreasing labor costs significantly.
